1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and system for specifying, deploying and dynamically updating work flows, and more particularly to a technique for dynamically updating a work flow by dynamically transforming a manual step of the work flow into an automatic step.
2. Related Art
In a conventional rule-based routing system utilized by a help center, each request by a customer is routed to an appropriate customer service representative according to a set of business rules so that appropriate services can be provided to the customer. The routing system is represented by a decision tree with nodes corresponding to automated steps that route requests and leaf nodes corresponding to manual steps that service requests. The conventional data processing representations of the automated steps and the manual steps are non-uniform and are developed separately, often being managed by different software applications. Deficiencies of conventional routing systems related to this non-uniformity and separate development include (1) inefficient duplicate provision of information needed by both the automated steps and the manual steps (e.g., the customer's account number is entered once on a telephone keypad and again provided to a customer service representative by voice); (2) complicated creation and maintenance of the logic of applications managing the automated and manual steps; and (3) expensive and time-consuming customized integration of the different applications managing the automated and manual steps. Furthermore, known routing systems inadequately represent the problem-solving steps utilized by a customer service representative. Thus, there exists a need to overcome at least one of the preceding deficiencies and limitations of the related art.